Autobiographies by Abuse Survivors:

Bell Hooks, Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997).

This memoir focuses on Hooks's relationship with a man she lived with for many years and on how she found her voice as a feminist, an African-American, and a writer, not on her abuse history. However, she speaks clearly of the impact of physical and emotional abuse and implies at least one incident of sexual abuse. Because she analyzes what it means to be African-American, I think this book might be particularly useful to anyone who is African-American and trying to come to terms with surviving abuse. She has some brief critiques of the attitudes of therapists towards African-Americans. I found the book very moving as a memoir of being a feminist in the 1970s.

Suzannah Lessard, The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family (New York: Delta Books, 1997).

This is a beautifully written book about the author's extended family. Her own experiences of sexual abuse are described rather briefly. The book focuses on family patterns and the story of her grandfather, the famous architect, Stanford White. The book helped me understand family patterns, particularly of not protecting. I also loved the way she writes about the landscape and about buildings that were important to her family as a way of expressing the movement of her unconscious. This book is in part about the world of the social elite, and it may be particularly useful to people who grew up in that world.

Elizabeth Julie Mikal, Until Darkness Holds No Fear: Healing a Multiple Personality (Boulder CO: Books Beyond Borders, 1995). Books Beyond Borders: P.O. Box 18929, Boulder CO 80308-1929.

This book highlights the role of the multiple system itself in directing the healing process. It begins with a little bit of detail on her abuse by her stepmother, but the large majority of the book deals with the healing process. It is one of the most vivid descriptions of an inner-world that I have read, but her alters are so well organized and clear and take such care to help her through the healing process, that I couldn't really relate to her story.

Sarah E. Olson, Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Multiple Personality Disorder (Pasadena CA: Trilogy Books, 1997).

I recommend this book. It is a much more modern treatment than most of the books available; in particular, it does not treat DID as something rare and strange. The focus is very much on the healing story and on the therapy process, though there are some graphic details of abuse (by her mother's lover).

The book includes many excerpts from journal entries, letters, and tapes of therapy sessions. It is particularly interesting for its discussion of her relationships with her sisters and her father. I was distracted by the organization of the book into chapters focused on different topics instead of a more chronological story of the healing process. But if you are looking for a book you can dip into for information on particular issues that might be useful--it even has an index. One caution: the book puts a very heavy emphasis on integration as the goal, though she acknowledges how difficult it was, at first, to live as a single person.

Yvette M. Pennacchia, Healing the Whole: The Diary of an Incest Survivor (London and New York: Cassell, 1994).

This book is a therapy journal, with very few abuse details. It is interesting for her relationship both with her therapist and with her 12-step sponsor. A great variety of issues are covered, with particular attention to issues of intimacy and sexuality. She does not discuss multiple personality, but does work a lot with an inner-child who is quite independent. I didn't feel comfortable with the book, but I'm not sure whether that was because of the book or my own issues.

Betsy Petersen, Dancing With Daddy: A Childhood Lost and a Life Regained (New York: Bantam, 1991).

This is a story of father-daughter incest in a stable-looking upper-middle-class family--her father was a doctor. The emphasis is on family secrets. Some good material on putting the pieces of her life back together. I read this book a couple of years ago and it hasn't stayed with me.

Jane Phillips, The Magic Daughter: A Memoir of Living With Multiple Personality Disorder (New York: Viking, 1995).

I loved this book, but partly that is because Phillips held her job as a college professor throughout her recovery process. I indentified very strongly with that aspect of the story. It is a story mostly of her life as a multiple and of the therapy process (including the slow process of realizing that she was multiple). There are a few descriptions of sexual abuse in later childhood, but Phillips became multiple initially because of terrible experiences when hospitalized for medical problems.

Sue William Silverman, Because I Remember Terror Father I Remember You (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1996).

This book tells a story of father-daughter incest in a seemingly-successful upper-middle-class family. It is particularly striking for the mother's ability to ignore what was going on and for Silverman's description of how the only way she could survive was to seek to please her father sexually. The book is primarily an autobiography of the abuse; there is little attention to the therapy process but some discussion of how she put her life back together. I found this book more useful than most books that focus on detailed descriptions of abuse; she taught me more of how to understand and forgive the role of the child. She does acknowledge multiple personalities but does not give much attention to multiplicity as an issue.

The Troops for Truddi Chase, When Rabbit Howls (New York: Jove Books, 1990, first published by E. P. Dutton, 1987).

They decide not to integrate! No, seriously, this book is different in a lot of ways from the average autobiography of a multiple. It describes a very complex system in a woman who functioned quite well in the world (and who had a very hard time accepting the reality of the alters). "She" does not simply switch from one alter to another--the alters often speak through the surface shell or through other alters and sometimes they blend together.

I identified with this book more than with any other that I have read. I recommend it very strongly, particularly if you feel like the classic descriptions somehow don't fit. The abuse (by a stepfather) is gruesome, and there are quite a lot of abuse memories told, mostly not with a lot of detail (though you may not want to read this one if you are afraid of snakes). The therapist is confused and caring, and the book is organized around the story of the therapy, not the story of the abuse. There is considerable discussion of disruption of electrical appliances and some discussion of psychic phenomena.

Cameron West, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple (New York: Hyperion, 1999).

This is, in many ways, a useful book. It presents a more modern view of DID, with some co-consciousness and a healing process that emphasizes coming to accept the alters rather than integration. It deals with such topics as denial, self-injury, and the impact on the author's wife and son.

I am glad this book is being widely read. It gives a much more accurate view of DID than is common in popular culture. However, I must admit that I found the book very irritating because he makes the story so neat. He seems to go through each step of healing in order and only once. It just isn't that easy. The story is centered around healing and the abuse descriptions are brief, though I found them triggering because they are explicit and deal with abuse by his mother.

Barbara Wilson, Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood (St. Martin's Press, 1998).

This is a beautifully written, but very painful memoir of growing up in the 1950s. The author's mother was a devout Christian Scientist, and Wilson tries to understand and value her mother's faith. However, when Wilson was 10, her mother came down with breast cancer and had a mental breakdown because her Christian Science practices failed to heal her cancer. Her mother spent several years in-and-out of mental and other hospitals before dying of cancer.

Wilson experienced sexual abuse by an uncle; while that is a relatively small part of her story, she integrates it into the larger family pattern of maintaining that if you believe evil does not exist, then it cannot hurt you. This book should be of interest to people thinking about family silence or the mental illness or death of a parent. It deals primarily with childhood pain and also good memories, not with the healing process.

Louise M. Wisechild, The Mother I Carry: A Memior of Healing From Emotional Abuse (Seattle: Seal Press Feminist Publishing, 1993). Books can be ordered from Seal Press at 3131 Western Ave., Suite 410, Seattle WA 98121.

This is a wonderful account of using inside people and an inner-house as way to give form to the healing process. The focus of this book is on healing from emotional abuse by her mother, particularly dealing with the messages that she ended up carrying within herself that she was a bad person.

The book is shaped around an account of the healing process, though it does include memories of the emotional abuse by her mother and a few brief descriptions of sexual abuse by her grandfather, another male relative, and her stepfather (there is more discussion of the sexual abuse in The Obsidian Mirror). Wisechild does not diagnose herself with DID; she simply says "I have known for quite a while now that my personality is a collection of inner voices" (p. 10) . Wisechild enjoys her inner voices and does not believe that they need to be fused into a single self in order for her to heal. She is open about her feminist ideas and lesbian identity and relationships.

Louise M. Wisechild, The Obsidian Mirror: An Adult Healing from Incest (Seattle: Seal Press Feminist Publishing, second edition 1993).

This was one of the books most helpful to me because she puts a lot of emphasis on the world of symbols (for example, she envisions herself struggling to climb out of a deep pit). She talks very vividly about different parts of herself, but does not name them multiple personalities. Her abusers were her grandfather, another male relative, and her stepfather, and there are some explicit details of the abuse. However, her story is organized around her healing process, rather than being an autobiography of the abuse.

therapy accounts | back to top

home | pam | pem | female-female abuse | book reviews |